MANY, La– In an ever-changing tournament where conditions changed by the hour and the day, the only constant this week at the St. Croix Rods Bassmaster Open at Toledo Bend was Ben Milliken.
Milliken caught over 20 pounds each day of the tournament, 29-8 on Day 1 followed by 26-15 the second day and then 21-7 pounds on Championship Saturday to finish with 77-14. That fell just shy of breaking the all time record for an Opens winning weight, which is held by Gerald Swindle from the 2011 Kissimmee Chain Open where he caught over 80 pounds.
It was a dominating performance in an otherwise unpredictable tournament. Trey McKinney was the only other angler to catch 20 pounds each day of the tournament, and he finished second, over 10 pounds behind Milliken.
Despite the changing conditions, Toledo Bend showed plenty of potential and promise over the three tournament days.
Big Baits Played a Big Role
Big baits catch big bass and throwing big swimbaits and glide baits is right in Milliken’s wheelhouse. And what better place to showcase that ability than Toledo Bend, where lunkers are always one cast away. Milliken used either a 9, 10 or 15-inch glide bait, as well as a line-through swimbait, and watched his LiveScope to target individuals and groups of bass on shallow clay points.
Those bass were feeding on gizzard shad, which those baits do a great job at imitating. More bass followed than ate, but the ones that did bite were tournament winning quality.
In one instance, Milliken had to feed his line back towards one bass to keep it in the strike zone before making one twitch and getting that bass to bite. To catch his fifth keeper on Saturday, Milliken reached in his rod locker, grabbed a 7-inch crank-down style swimbait and caught a 4-pounder first cast.
“That was unbelievable,” Milliken said.
But the big bait bite is volatile, and Milliken knew he was going to need the Carolina rig with a 6th Sense Hogwalla to finish the job.
“From the last couple years, I know how fickle that bite is and I could not rely on the big bait bite to carry me the entire way,” Milliken said. “I was telling people all week I had the Carolina rig to fall back on. I didn’t catch any on a glide bait besides a line-through today.”
Milliken wasn’t the only one throwing oversized baits. Brett Cannon threw the new 7-inch Bass Mafia Daingerous swimbait while Matt Henry included a glide bait in his arsenal. John Garrett threw a Strike King 10XD out of necessity to keep the smaller spotted bass from biting. He also threw a glide bait out deep and molded weights to the belly of the bait so it would sink down to 20 or 30 feet of water.
While not as big as the 10XD, McKinney used a 5XD on the final day.
Toledo Bend Fans Shows Out
The crowd on and off the water at Toledo Bend was awesome this week. Each day the patio at Cypress Bend Landing was full of fans and the kids in attendance got plenty of autographs and pictures with the anglers.
On the final day, close to 15 boats followed Milliken’s every move and cheered him on as he caught fish. Several other competitors collected spectator boats too.
Yet Another Weird Weather Day
Consistency was nonexistent as far as the weather went this week.
Saturday morning started with cloudy conditions and a little bit of wind. As the morning progressed, a line of storms moved through to the south of Toledo Bend, but some of that weather crossed the lake as well. While it only spat rain, the system brought the strongest wind of any of the three tournament days around mid-morning, making things pretty choppy.
By noon, the clouds had cleared and the wind had subsided enough to make running a more manageable task.
“I saw some lightning and I was thinking, ‘I don’t know.’ But I think it helped me catch that 6-9. Then it slicked off and I didn’t get a bite for a while. But the storm helped me catch that big one,” Cannon said.
The weather affected anglers in several different ways. With the wind blowing directly on his points, Milliken saw the water begin to dirty up, which started getting his gears turning. Once the weather calmed down, his bite picked up particularly in his one deep spot.
“The bite was tougher this morning. All of a sudden the waves start coming in and we start seeing mudlines forming the points. I was worried the weird storming thing wasn’t going to stop and get worse,” he said. “(Once it cleared off) I probably caught 10 fish. I went to my deep spot and caught 7 or 8 there.”
McKinney has a similar scenario. With the water continuing to drop, the youngster from Illinois punted on his shallow deal and hit a couple of offshore areas. Right before the weather got really nasty, he caught a 5-pounder and a 3-pounder on a shallow bar. Once the skies cleared, he pulled up on a deeper spot and caught a bunch of big bass.
“The bass today were just getting out there,” he said. “I had three nice ones right off the bat. I went on and it got windy. But then it slicked off and got sunny. I said, ‘Wait a minute, we know what to do.’ I went straight to my offshore stuff where I thought they would set up better. My first three casts, it happened.”
The rest of the Top 10 struggled a good bit on Championship Sunday. Garrett mentioned on the weigh-in stage that his offshore deal did not exist in the morning with the weather moving through.
EQ Standings Taking Shape
With 175 anglers fishing all 9 of the Bassmaster Opens, getting off to a good start at Lake Eufaula and at Toledo Bend is crucial even with seven more events remaining on the schedule.
Looking through the Top 20 this week, Bassmaster LIVE host and stats guru Ronnie Moore found that there are seven anglers who also made the Top 20 at Lake Eufaula. Milliken, Cannon, Garrett, Wesley Gore, Jacob Bigelow, Matt Henry and McKinney will lead the rest of the field into Buggs Island in two weeks for the third event of the season.
